Researchers In Italy Develop Safe, Effective Shigella Vaccine.(Brief Article)

2001 MAR 21 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) --

by N.R. Saltmarsh, staff medical writer -- Vaccination against Shigella spp. offers promise for protection against dysentery, and now researchers working in Italy have pinpointed one vaccine that appears safe and effective.

M.L. Bernardini and colleagues set out to find the strain of Shigella that was likely to offer the most protection, and to define parameters such as ideal route of administration and whether disease protection corresponded to antibody response in plasma. Their results were published in Infection and Immunity.

The researchers inoculated guinea pigs intranasally with three strains of Shigella flexneri: a wild-type M90T, an aroC mutant, and a double purE aroC mutant.

The aroC mutant caused weak nasal tissue destruction but was protective against Shigella. This protection corresponded to high levels of anti-lipopolysaccharide immunoglobulin A (IgA).

The purE aroC double mutant also caused weak tissue destruction, but it did not offer disease protection and elicited low levels of IgA.

Only the M90T double purE aroC mutant, administered intragastrically, offered protection that did not ...